Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are widely recognized for their unique optical, electronic, and antibacterial properties, enabling their use in biosensing, photonics, electronics, drug delivery, and antimicrobial treatments. Green chemistry-based biological synthesis methods offer an eco-friendly alternative to traditional chemical techniques. Among metallic nanoparticles (NPs) and metal oxides, those derived from plant extracts exhibit notable medicinal properties. Due to their exceptional stability and low chemical reactivity, AgNPs are particularly well-suited for various biological applications. AgNPs can be synthesized through chemical, physical, or biological methods, each with distinct benefits and challenges. Chemical and physical approaches often involve complex purification, reactive reagents, and high energy demands, while biological methods, though slower, provide sustainable solutions. The chosen synthesis method strongly influences the stability, size, and purity of the resulting NPs. This review emphasizes the importance of selecting appropriate synthesis methods to optimize the characteristics and functionality of silver NPs. It consolidates research spanning the past two decades, including the most recent findings from 2024. A comprehensive electronic search of databases such as PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Cochrane, and Google Scholar was conducted to provide an up-to-date overview of advances in the synthesis and applications of silver nanoparticles.

Surfactants are a group of amphiphilic molecules (i.e., having both hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains) that are a vital part of nearly every contemporary industrial process such as in agriculture, medicine, personal care, food, and petroleum. In general surfactants can be derived from (i) petroleum-based sources or (ii) microbial/plant origins. Petroleum-based surfactants are obvious results from petroleum products, which lead to petroleum pollution and thus pose severe problems to the environment leading to various ecological damages. Thus, newer techniques have been suggested for deriving surfactant molecules and maintaining environmental sustainability. Biosurfactants are surfactants of microbial or plant origins and offer much added advantages such as high biodegradability, lesser toxicity, ease of raw material availability, and easy applicability. Thus, they are also termed "green surfactants". In this regard, this review focused on the advantages of biosurfactants over the synthetic surfactants produced from petroleum-based products along with their potential applications in different industries. We also provided their market aspects and future directions that can be considered with selections of biosurfactants. This would open up new avenues for surfactant research by overcoming the existing bottlenecks in this field.

Calendula officinalis Linn. (CO) is a popular medicinal plant from the plant kingdom’s Asteraceae family that has been used for millennia. This plant contains flavonoids, triterpenoids, glycosides, saponins, carotenoids, volatile oil, amino acids, steroids, sterols, and quinines. These chemical constituents confer multifaceted biological effects such as anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, antihelminthic, antidiabetes, wound healing, hepatoprotective, and antioxidant activities. Additionally, it is employed in cases of certain burns and gastrointestinal, gynecological, ocular, and skin conditions. In this review, we have discussed recent research from the last five years on the therapeutic applications of CO and emphasized its myriad capabilities as a traditional medicine. We have also elucidated CO’s molecular mechanisms and recent clinical studies. Overall, this review intends to summarize, fill in the gaps in the existing research, and provide a wealth of possibilities for researchers working to validate traditional claims and advance the safe and effective use of CO in treating various ailments.

Schiff bases containing benzothiazole unit are synthesized and characterized by ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, LC-MS, UV-visible and fluorescence spectroscopy methods. Synthesized compounds were evaluated for in-vitro antibacterial activities on four different strains (S.aureus, Bacillus sps, E. coli, and K.pneumoniae) and antifungal activity on one strain (C. albicans) by using “Micro-broth dilution method” (MIC in µg/mL). All compounds showed excellent antibacterial activity for S.aureus, E. coli, and K.pneumoniae strains, as well as an antifungal activity for C. albicans, compared to standard Ciprofloxacin and Fluconazole respectively. Molecular docking studies were carried out to get more insight into the binding mechanism. Reactivity of molecules was assessed using Molecular Electrostatic Potential (MEP). HOMO-LUMO gap, chemical hardness, and global softness were calculated and correlated with antimicrobial activity. VS5-e exhibits excellent antimicrobial activities and also shows more chemical reactivity and less toxicity which were confirmed by smaller HOMO-LUMO gap, lesser chemical hardness, higher global softness, and lesser electrophilicity index. Henceforth it was further assessed for DNA cleavage and against MCF-7 breast cancer cell. VS5-e reveals 85.82% inhibition of cancer cells at a concentration of 200 µg/mL. The compound VS5-e showed less toxicity to normal cells at the concentration required to produce an anticancer effect (with high IC₅₀ = 973 µg/mL).